Burnout Paradise Review

It’s not every day you get to play a Racing game which both delights the senses and actually feels gracious towards the player, but I guess the old saying’s true; in Paradise, anything’s possible.

Criterion Games have been providing us with flashy, destructive games for six years now and this iteration of Burnout is no different.  The franchise however has been fully rebooted back to basics and built-up straight from the start once again to encapsulate all that made previous iterations of the game popular, plus so much more that really does shift Burnout Paradise into the Next Generation.   Burnout Paradise takes advantage of being on the Next Generation Consoles by taking the game and removing the Mission Objectives and throws you into a sandbox-style open world where you are in charge of your own fate and what you do, it’s all basically limited by your own imagination as you cause destruction and mayhem to obtain you goals.

Burnout Paradise is all about taking part in the City-wide Racing scene where everyone is aiming to be the best.  You drop into town with nothing but a car you get given from the Junkyard and a few hints from time to time, the rest is inevitably up to you.  Markers are shown on the world map so that you can navigate to the various Racing, Time Trials and Destruction modes from which you’ll build up your stature as one of the ‘Burnout Elite’.  Throughout play, you’ll unlock new cars and new driver’s licenses to show that you are indeed king of the roads.  You begin with a D license and as you progress and out-class the other racers, your License will update to show that you’ve moved on to a new stage in the game.  To unlock new licenses, you must complete a set number of tasks on each license and upon completion you will be issued with a new license and a new car for you to use to show that you’ve completed the required license.

Burnout Paradise offers an array of game modes in an attempt to draw to you in and it does manage rather well by utilising its core modes like Race, Road Rage, Burning Routes and Stuntman.  The only qualm I have here is the fact that with very few modes to take part in, the game does get rather repetitive after you’ve basically had your fill of each mode.  The game however doesn’t stop offering you these modes so there’s always something to do while driving around Paradise City.

Don’t think that’s all there is to do in Paradise City, oh no.  The City bustles with ramps you can fly over to unlock Super Jump merits, Billboard to crash through (in the most insane ways possible) and Smashes which pits you up against blocked streets as you crash through to take advantage of new areas.  There’s also the Showtime mode which is sort of Burnout’s bread and butter this time as it’s the most insane thing you’ll ever play.  Basically, the idea is just to go around and smash everything, literally just tear the streets apart and try to get the most insane score possible.  It’s probably the most fun you’ll get out of Burnout and you’ll always want to go back for more.

Burnout Paradise also has multiplayer support and it’s the most unique system where as soon as you choose to go online, the game switches right there and then and adds you into a match, be it a quick match or custom match setup by you and your friends.

There are many online modes to take advantage of from the single player, plus multi achievement tasks that can be done online with friends which is a really interesting way to play.  Also, you can just go on and smash each other up at high speeds, so it’s really up to you how you want to play yet again.  There’s really no end to the online fun you can have when just messing around with friends or beating on total strangers to show them who’s boss.

Along with the XBOX Live and Playstation Network features, you can use each consoles Camera to take mug shots of your victims as you beat them.  If they have a camera like the Vision Camera or Playstation Eye, you’ll get given a mug shot which will show the players reaction as you beat them.  It’s an interesting feature but doesn’t sound as fun as you might think as it’s still hard to find players with Camera’s on their end.

Burnout Paradise is graphically stunning and is a testament to what the Next Generation Consoles can handle in terms of complexity and realism.  The City of Paradise in itself is a monument to design as it’s not based on any you’ve ever seen before, it may look like your typical American City but it’s just so much more than that with its crazy side-roads, ramps, work-sites and dirt tracks.

Needless to say, the City is jam-packed with excitement on every corner and it’s very easy to miss important ramps and other such targets whilst travelling down an intersection at high-velocity speeds.   The cars are beautiful, each made to look like something you could see on the streets, however they also give off a certain Burnout style feeling that you can only get when whacking another car into the sidewalk.  The cars can’t be faulted in terms of design and really do add that edge to the gameplay as you’ll never get sick of driving them no matter how much you see them.

With that said, it’s not a bustling City full of pedestrians walking about; but it does encapsulate exactly what the game needed to keep a fast-paced and unruly gameplay mechanic.  Even though there aren’t pedestrians, there are lots of cars moving around in Paradise City ready to get in your way; just wanting you to fail at the many of the tasks you take part in and you’ll be taken down more often than you think as you progress through the tasks.

The Official Soundtrack isn’t as good as the game, it’s a mixture of nearly everything that players would want but there are just not enough songs for each genre to keep the player interested.  Owners of XBOX 360’s will rejoice over being able to use the custom soundtrack system whilst Playstation 3 players may want to stick a CD on or have something play music that they like as they won’t miss the music in this game.  However, the sound effects are top-notch and shouldn’t be missed; each car has its own unique engine sounds and the better the car, the nicer they sound, so it’d be a real missed treat just because of the bad Soundtrack.

Overall, Burnout Paradise could be classed as the black sheep.  The steer away from the Mission-based System to an Open World may put fanatics off but in terms of gameplay; you can’t beat it.  Burnout Paradise encapsulates everything you’ve ever wanted from a racing game and is a fantastic start to a new beginning for the franchise.  If you’re still not sure about the game after having read this review, I recommend you rent it before you buy it to see if it really is for you.